The Vance County Board of Education approved their local plan for the distribution of the State’s Merit Bonus Pay for the 2016-17 school year last night at their December 12, 2016 meeting.
In the State budget for this fiscal year only, districts across the state received allocations to implement a district level merit bonus plan for non-educators. Vance County Schools received $106,000 to be used exclusively for this purpose. Non-educators are those staff members who are not paid on the state certified salary schedules and are not school administrators (Teacher Assistants, Bus Drivers, Maintenance, IT Technicians, Child Nutrition, Custodial, Office Support, School Technical Support, and Central Services Support). The law required each school district to develop a plan for the use of these funds meeting the minimum criteria for distribution set by the state.
The most restrictive requirement by the state was that the bonus could not be distributed across the board to eligible employees.
Vance County Schools (VCS) formed a task force comprised of staff that represented all the groups eligible for this merit bonus. The task force worked to develop the district’s plan that would provide a meaningful and fair merit award to eligible employees, ranging from $750 to $1000, for the top 10% of the performers in each non-educator group. With the Board of Education’s approval of the plan, staff will work in January to identify staff members eligible to receive the bonus based on the criteria in the plan.
A copy of the full plan can be found on the district’s website at www.vcs.k12.nc.us. For questions please contact Jennifer Bennett, Assistant Superintendent for Business & Finance, jbennett@vcs.k12.nc.us.